Walcot Cemetery Gate And Wall

PARAGON 656-1/31/1177 (East side) Walcot Cemetery gate and wall (Formerly Listed as: PARAGON Walcot Cemetery Gates) 12/06/50

GV II

Cemetery gate and wall. 1840. By James Wilson. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, wrought iron gate. Wall, approx 25m long and 3m high, spans space between church house (qv) and house to right, behind and below catacomb. Wall has moulded coping, cornice, triglyph frieze, banded rustication, moulded dado and plinth. Moulded architrave to central fixed gate with arrow headed vertical rails flanked by wide stepped forward piers with block caps and recessed panels between frieze and dado containing inverted flambeau torches (symbol of death), flanking walls each have two similar panels. Top originally had ornaments in form of niches with segmental pediment heads rising above central piers. These have been removed since 1945. This is an unusually elaborate wall to a town burial ground, employing a dramatic form of Neoclassical symbolism more usually found on contemporary private cemeteries (ie Nunhead Cemetery, South London). Town burial grounds such as this were to close down in the 1850s, and is thus a late example of this unusual genre. Listing NGR: ST7506765537